Blood and Roses
by BSparrow
Summary: True love never dies. One-shot vampire AU inspired by posts on Tumblr about Caroline Walter of Freiburg, Germany and an idea from liddym2113.


He woke early, aware of the significance of the day as soon as his eyes opened.

The moon was high overhead and heady spring air had cooled when he emerged.

There would be no one to disturb him at this late hour. He knew people feared such places after dark. He could almost remember that fear, like a word on the tip of his tongue, but not the reason behind it. What reason did one have to fear the dead, the truly dead? What harm could they do?

Only their memory could cause pain.

He did not need the silver moonlight to find his way to her. His predator's eyes cut through the darkness like a sharp knife. He knew the path by heart.

He moved silently among the garden of stone, aware of even the faintest stirring of the creatures of the night, and stopped at her feet.

Carol. His Carol.

She had been full of life. Her eyes were bright, her hands warm when she touched him.

He could still recall the first moment he saw her – out in the woods late one night, calling for her daughter.

He would've killed her, drained her like he did anyone else foolish enough to be out in the darkness alone.

But when she saw him, she looked up at him with tears in her clear blue eyes and begged him to help her find her little girl.

He followed her through the trees that night, close enough to smell her, close enough to hear the blood pumping frantically through her veins.

But he didn't touch her. And he met her there again the very next evening.

She talked as they walked, her mouth running loose while her mind was otherwise occupied. She told him of her parents, her childhood, her late husband, and her beloved daughter. And he listened carefully to each and every word, to every nuance of her sweet voice.

He was surprised that she didn't seem to find it unusual that they only met after dark. She never asked him to join her during the daylight hours and he never made excuses.

Two nights passed in this way before he felt her losing hope; before he saw the light begin to drain from her eyes. When she finally sat down hard on the ground and cried, it was an empty, hopeless sound that stirred his cold, dead heart.

And when he sat down beside her, she leaned on him for strength, for support, instead of scrambling away in fear. He nearly asked her then if she knew what he was, if she knew that he was a monster, but the moment passed and he never managed to find the words.

The next evening he brought her a white rose, one that could be found growing wild at the edge of the trees. She knew its significance. She had been a child when the Cherokee women cried their tears. And she thanked him, placing her small hand on his ice-cold skin.

He found her daughter alongside the river the very next night, drained of every drop of her blood.

He thought Carol would break, thought she would shatter under the weight of her grief. But days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and Carol remained strong.

As summer turned into autumn and autumn faded into winter, he came to realize that he still found his way to her every evening without fail even though she no longer needed him.

He discovered she was ill one night late in December. She tried to hide the bright red blood dotting the white handkerchiefs into which she coughed but he could smell it, sharp and strong.

As she weakened day by day, desperation drove him to reveal his secret. But there was no surprise on her face, no fear in her eyes.

He asked her to join him that night but even with Death breathing down her neck, she wouldn't damn her soul. She told him she intended to join her daughter in Heaven after she passed and he never asked again.

When she could no longer stand, her mother came to care for her. The woman feared him, he could smell it on her.

But still Carol waited for him each night, a lamp burning bright beside her bed. And something inside him died for a second time as he watched her wither, a neglected flower that no amount of care and tenderness could rouse.

She sent for him the morning she drew her last breath. He would forever wonder if, in her last fevered moments she'd changed her mind.

But it didn't matter. The news came to him too late and by the time he awoke, she was cold.

He'd loved her with the steadiness of a slow moving river, with the heat of the burning sun. He'd loved her as birds love the blue sky; without thought, without reason, without pretense.

And he'd never regretted it, not for a moment. The brief moments of pleasure were worth the years of pain, even now when the smell of sunlight in her hair had nearly faded from his memory.

His only regret was that he'd never told her; that she had gone into the darkness without having heard those words from him.

For now she had gone somewhere he could never follow, even after his final death.

He laid the Cherokee rose on her headstone, as he did every evening, and traced the dates carved into marble. She was dust in the ground and his immortal life was still in its early years.

His Carol had been dead for 150 years today.


End file.
